One of my father’s favorite actors was Clint Eastwood. I thought this title for a few catch up blog posts was fitting. I have also learned that when presenting hard to process information, it is often important to start with the good points. Whether I am working in a critique group, delivering bad news, or plotting and pitching a novel, it seems it is always best to soften people up and lighten the mood with the good stuff first. I also hope that the titles will help my readers gage whether or not they actually want to read further.

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The Good

While I was slogging through my research on agents that would be attending the San Francisco Writer’s Conference I discovered that there is a literary agent who just moved to our area. It also happened that she occasionally gave a one day workshop on “Crafting Fiction That Sells.” At the end of the class, participants got to practice their pitches on her and two other agents. Never mind impressing anyone, which I also wanted to do, but here I might have a  chance to work out some of the anxiety I had about approaching and pitching an agent before I got to SF, and I would have two more weeks to prepare using what I learned in her class.

At this point it was still hard for me to imagine an agent as a real live person who wouldn’t either rip my head off for bothering them, or yawn with boredom at my clumsy pitch. I had already done a fair amount of synopsizing my novel, reworking this and my pitch. I still unfortunately felt a fair amount of uncertainty about what I had prepared. In this class I would be able to learn what a real live agent wants to hear, what annoys them, and where I could improve my own presentation.  

I learned about the next workshop two days before it started. It was on a Saturday, and was two hours away from where I lived and include a ferry ride. It was a scramble. A good friend agreed to rearrange her schedule and babysit because hubby had to work that Saturday. I had to make a few phone calls and send a few emails to get registered, but I got in at the last minute.

In this Saturday workshop we worked on our first line and title. I couldn’t believe my luck. How amazing to have stumbled upon this workshop especially at a time when I was operating at such high anxiety level preparing for this big conference in San Francisco. Would I be able to fit this in to my schedule? I was already frantically editing and reworking my first fifty pages with my mentor. You would think I was meeting the pope. In a way I was.

I also found that what Noah Lukeman said in “The First Five Pages” about how agents sum up an author’s work based on the first few pages, sometimes the first few lines, was not exaggerated.  (Now this sounds like common sense but at the time I actually thought agents had the time to read a good chunk of a manuscript before deciding to pass or read more.  Now I know how amazingly busy they are and how unrealistic that view is.) The first page has to shine; glow, sing and anything else you can make it do to get the agent’s attention right off the bat. Then they might read the next fifty.

At the same time I found out about the Saturday workshop, I also found out that this same agent was offering an eight week course  where she would actually critique the first fifty pages and workshop them in class. Holy Cow! The only thing was that it was again two hours away and in the middle of the week, mid day. The first priority was the workshop, but I had already started thinking about the class. This would mean working out a longer term babysitting schedule and getting hubby to go for this. In was not certain he would be enthusiastic. He was happy for me when I got in to the Saturday workshop, but long term stuff can get to him. I think he believes that once something starts it will never end.

I presented it the same way I had with the workshop, “Honey, A real live agent!! I am paying all this money and doing all this preparation just to meet a few for three minutes in San Francisco. Here I will get so much more. She is actually reading my writing!”

I still remember how I worried that he wouldn’t go for it, like rearranging the kids lives for this was too much. Already, the expense and the fact that I would be away from the family in San Francisco for four days was a big deal. I was lucky he went for that. I am after all a stay-at-home mom. That means I am supposed to be at home-with the kids.

As he does with most things like this, he got quiet, thought on it for a day, leaving me to wonder and worry.  I decided if I had to I would fight, proving to him and myself how much my career as a novelist means to me.  I kept coming back to what a stroke of luck this was. I couldn’t let this opportunity pass me by. I was sure I would never get another one this good.

“I can work Saturdays and stay home Wednesdays. It will be nice to spend time with my creatures anyway,” he says a day later after dinner.

I was over the moon and back. Things were clicking in to place in a way I hadn’t even imagined.

So before the conference I had two more weeks of classes with her where I got to work on my first few pages. By the time I got to San Francisco I felt prepared.

Regarding my novel, I had been thinking that what I wanted was to find someone who would read the entire manuscript and let me know what worked, what didn’t, ways to improve, etc.  At the conference the first class I attended was presented by Alan Rinzler, a working editor with years of experience who told us all first that now was a great time to be a writer. I like this. Optimism. That’s what I needed. I had already read and knew more would be presented at the conference, about how now was an especially difficult time in publishing.

This guy talked about some of the people he worked with and projects he had worked on.  I was impressed. As his talk went on, I became more and more excited. What I found the most encouraging was  that he said what he liked to do was to review a manuscript in the early stages, before the author had put months in to polishing the wrong things, and give suggestions and insights at that stage. This was exactly what I had been looking for. I did not approach him during the conference. After he spoke there were swarms of people around him. I knew if I introduced myself I would just be one of many.  Instead I talked to as many people as I could about him. Was he really good? Did he have a good reputation or just make a good presentation?  I left the conference with hope that this might be the right person to help me.

One of the things that I have debated as I began to get serious is the MFA. Costly, time consuming, plus all the BS involved in trying to get in to the right school. More time away from kids and hubby and no guarantee of anything, same as if I just hole up in my office for four or more hours a day.

Time and again I come back to this. Perfecting my craft will be about how much time I put in to writing.  If the writing stinks, no matter how much schooling I have had, it won’t change that simple fact.  Improving my writing is about what I do, not what someone else does for me, though I do acknowledge the benefits of finding good teachers.  If I have a good editor, someone who is only working with me, I am learning what’s relevant in the business now, what I need to do to improve my own voice, and style, at my own pace and in my own space. I have decided that my time and money are better spent in this way.

So, I sent off my manuscript after a few introductory emails. Again I worried, would he turn me down, I remembered the editors and agents who didn’t like my pitch, “There is just so much going on,” they said. What if he didn’t think it was worth the time?

 I was ecstatic when he accepted me as a client.

Over the moon on a pogo stick was I. I met with in him by phone in early March (pitiful I know that I am just now getting this posted.) I am thrilled with that experience so far. He was encouraging, his insights helpful, and he is very efficient.

I feel now that I am going forward with a real plan. Like a professional- something I have been aiming for this whole time. I wanted to put the same level of commitment and skill in to my writing as I did in to my job in accounting. Obviously I am still working on the skill part, but at least now I am confident about the directions I have been given to follow.

I keep thinking about the quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

The last thing I have to report under the heading of “The Good” is this:

 The agent I was so excited to even take one class with, posted an ad in one of the local writer’s newsletters I get by email.  I read the line over and over.  I sat pondering again, just like I did when I considered the workshop, and the feasibility of the eight week class.

Intern for a real live agent.

Huh.

Wow.

Huh.

Then my thoughts really kicked in:

“No way you can make the time for that.”

“What if I got it? Oh my God, What if I got it???”

“No way, it’s probably already been filled. She probably has MFA students all over her for this sort of thing.”

“Yeah but what if she doesn’t? What if you got it?”

So I thought on it some more, about how all these cool things just kept coming, and maybe this would happen too. If not, at least I tried and wouldn’t hate myself for passing up another opportunity that could have been something really great.

I sat down, composed what I hoped was an email that balanced the right mix of competence, relaxed good humor, and professionalism.

By the end of the day I had a response.

Then the high pitched little teenage voice goes off in my head, “Oh my God, Oh My God, Oh My God….”

How does that Carpenters song go?

Mommy was singing in the kitchen that day.